Book Review: Machaelle Small Wright Autobiographies

Fairies and Science Fiction For Skeptics:
A Review of Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon and
Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered
by Machaelle Small Wright

Once in a while, you'll run into books unlike anything you've read before, and that completely change your view of what's possible. Not in the usual sense with people surmounting overwhelming physical and emotional challenges, but that have you questioning reality. Machaelle Small Wright's non-fictional, autobiographical books will either make you doubt the author's sanity, or your own, but the latter will be in an unexpectedly empowering way.

Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon, and Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered are two books from Perelandra, the author's nature research center specialising in “nature intelligences” based in Virginia. From the start, Machaelle self-published her books because they were so odd, and so she could keep them in print; they are still available today from Amazon, Book Depository and Perelandra's own website. Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered came first in 1983, followed by Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon.

The books follow Machaelle's life, which started off relatively normal. As events took a turn for the “twilight zone,” however, beginning with Machaelle's move to the Virginia countryside, Dancing deftly gets up close and personal with how Machaelle learned to take it in stride (though not without struggle), and go from strength to strength. The events in both books are so incredible that it may be better to start with Dancing, as I did by chance: the writing is so much more detailed (perhaps coming from growing confidence and experience) that it feels more real, which is important when you're reading about some pretty “unreal” stuff—nature spirits, astral travel, and living a second life in another universe.

While Dancing In the Shadows of the Moon gets into the detail of Machaelle's metaphysical discoveries, in Behaving, the author's challenging childhood and first marriage takes centerstage. The books are compelling; no matter how high your disbelief is suspended, you read just to follow Machaelle's adventures, her lessons in meditation, communicating with nature intelligences (or devas and nature spirits and possibly the fairy folk to you and me), discovering past lives, shifting into a different world, working with energy, and manifestation of the level that makes The Secret look like kids' stuff. Machelle's books do two conflicting and difficult things: They are autobiographical but read like science-fiction; They are also grounded in our world (specifically, the United States and Europe circa 1970s and 80s) and manage to make magic—or what looks like magic—possible.

Behaving and Dancing have now gone through multiple printings; my copy of Behaving is an updated and revised edition from 1997. Machaelle Small Wright has more than built upon her work since the experiences described in both these books: Perelandra's catalog today includes books, videos, CDs, flower essence kits and more—all for teaching anyone how to work with nature for the environments and spaces that are kinder and healthier for both people and the planet.

About the Reviewer: Janet Chui is a freelance fantasy artist based in Singapore. She is no stranger to odd, self-published books, having edited, illustrated and published The Field Guide to Surreal Botany, a collection of fictitious plants, that was reviewed (positively) by Science magazine and that made her a 2009 World Fantasy Award finalist. When Janet isn't producing illustrations, paintings, or items for her Etsy shop, she dabbles in soapmaking and leads history tours around the tropical island of her birth.

Book Review: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

I am totally hooked on the brilliant writer Terry Pratchett's books. I've got about two dozen of them on my book shelf and am always on the look out for new ones. He has written dozens of stories, including the wonderfully entertaining Disc World series.

I want to share the Wee Free men series of books first because that is where I first discovered the magic of Terry Pratchett. I was browsing at the local book shop and saw a paperback with all these little blue men on the cover, and thought, this looks like my kind of book.

The Wee Free Men is a wonderful tale of witches, and barons, and traveling teachers, fae folk and regular folk. I laughed out loud, then read it to my kids. The main character is Tiffany Aching, the English daughter of a sheep ranching family. She lives on the Chalk, a place of rolling waves of grass growing on white chalk.

There is even a wonderful reference to the famous Uffington horse carved into the chalk, presumable during the Iron age. My daughters and I looked it up on the internet and saw pictures of the horse, and the giant too.

It's the kind of story that prompts you and your kids to want to learn the real history of a place. Tiffany's Granny Aching, suspiciously like a witch herself, was highly thought of in their sheep raising community and lived alone in a small hut where Tiffany goes to remember her, and discovers the burrow of the Wee Free Men.

About the Reviewer: Lovie Snippets, also known as Charlie, artist of Faerywhere Masks and Frogworks, lives with her family and numerous pets in the woods of northern California. She makes leather masks and cruelty-free feather jewelry, using feathers from the family's pet birds. She enjoys gardening, foraging for wild foods, and herbalogy.

Movie Review: The Wolfman

It's a pity this film didn't come out last month, because what could be a more perfect tie-in for our Wolf Moon theme? But then again, werewolves are ravenous beasts, so this tale fits well with the Hunger Moon monthly dare as well!

This 2010 version is apparently a relatively faithful adaptation of the vintage 1941 version starring Lon Chaney Jr. I've somehow never seen the original, so I have to take everyone else's word on it and judge the movie with fresh eyes.

The Wolfman gets high marks for scenery, mood, costume and performances, especially Anthony Hopkins as Sir John Talbot, the main character's menacing father; and Hugo Weaving as Abberline, the badass detective who I would have preferred as the focus of the movie.

Benicio del Toro does fine as Lawrence Talbot, the actor who returns to his family estate to investigate his brother's mysterious death. Unfortunately, he looks and sounds exactly like a younger version of comedian Rich Hall, and thus I could not take him seriously.

Though the movie attempts to be serious, with its brooding characters and the mystery surrounding the titular wolfman, I found the wolfman attack scenes to be so graphically over-the-top in their gore as to be nearly laughable. Perhaps I was supposed to be shocked by the intestines spread everywhere in the aftermath of a full moon's rampage, but instead I just rolled my eyes.

And that brings me to my main problem with The Wolfman. I constantly questioned the central concept of the murderous lycanthrope. Why does the werewolf tear numerous victims asunder in each attack? We're told that man lets out his inner beast under the pull of the full moon, but beasts don't murder. Beasts kill only what they need, eat it, and leave the picked-over remains for the scavengers to dispose of. Monsters kill indiscriminately, but wolves are not monsters. I'd hoped that, now that we live in more enlightened times, this movie might examine the werewolve's motives a bit, perhaps even show a struggle of beast vs. monster, but it never got that intellectual.

The truth is, I've never liked the werewolf myth, and I avoid most books and movies about them. As such, I am not the target audience for The Wolfman. Those of you who do enjoy tales of lycanthropy (and who haven't seen Rich Hall in numerous episodes of QI) will doubtless enjoy this haunting trip through the misty moors.

About the Reviewer: AJ of Erthe Fae Designs splits her time between tribal belly dance and creating beaded jewelry. She likes the color green, shiny things, corgis, her husband, tea, and hanging out with dance friends.